Kate Hudson's Blog

What a rehash of tedious old rubbish from the 1980s.  It is a shame that politicians and journalists haven't got anything better to do than restate baseless allegations. If people want to attack Baroness Ashton, better by far to criticise something she has actually done, rather than make up a fantasy crime. No evidence has ever been produced to show that CND received Soviet funding; not surprising because there was no funding. CND has always been an independent, politically non-aligned campaign, funded by its members and supporters.

 Sadly, these attacks are nothing new, and CND - because it campaigns to change government policy on nuclear weapons - has had more than its fair share of harassment, including from government. This was particularly marked during the 1980s when CND was the chief  articulator of opposition to the siting of US cruise missiles in the UK. During 1981 this was more or less confined to encouraging the media to limit CND's access and coverage. But as public support for CND increased, the government increased its efforts, focusing on accusations of Soviet funding. Bruce Kent, who was then General Secretary, offered a prize of £100 to anyone who could produce evidence of Soviet funding, but the prize was unclaimed.

That didn't stop the wild accusations. Lord Chalfont claimed that the Soviet Union was funding the European peace movement to the tune of £100 million a year. 'If they were', said Bruce Kent, 'it was certainly not getting to our grotty little office in Finsbury Park.' From the beginning of 1983, Michael Heseltine was Tory Defence Secretary and established DS19, a team within the MoD, to organise the campaign against CND. Heseltine's main angle was that CND's aim was the advancement of communism, rather than bothering to engage with our arguments.

Attention also came from MI5, and when the whistleblower Cathy Massiter left the Service, we discovered that Harry Newton, a volunteer who used to stuff envelopes, was actually a government informer. A number of attacks came through an organisation called the Coalition for Peace through Security, which disrupted events, sent a spy into CND office and tried to link Bruce Kent with the IRA. The Coalition opted for slogans like 'Disarmament equals surrender', and was endorsed by leading Conservative politicians.

If people want to support nuclear weapons, it is better by far that they have an honest debate with us, in which they put forward the military and political case for keeping them. To attempt to discredit our arguments by attacking us on the basis of lies and baseless allegations is nothing but cowardice and dishonesty.